History

Watercare Laboratory Services has operated continuously since the 1950s under local and regional government authorities. In 1991 it became a business unit of Watercare Services Ltd.

Since then, our capacity as the largest provider of water and wastewater analysis in New Zealand has allowed the laboratory to branch out into environmental analysis in areas such as stack emissions, ambient air quality, odour analysis, soil analysis, contaminated sites analysis and others. Our laboratories now perform testing for customers managing not only water and wastewater assets, but also covering quarrying and mining operations, power generators, heavy/light industry, landfill operations and more.

In February 2002, in response to increasing demand and having outgrown the premises, our laboratory was moved to a new 2,400 square metre purpose-designed facility in Airport Oaks, Auckland. The laboratory now boasts state of the art facilities including; a positive pressure clean room for inorganic analysis, a MAF (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry) approved transitional facility to house samples from overseas or quarantine samples, an emergency backup generator and a backup water supply.

In 2007 we opened a laboratory in Queenstown, Otago, then, due to our continued success and growth we opened a third laboratory in Invercargill, Southland, in 2012 to serve the needs of the lower South Island.

Today, our laboratory operation is a professionally focused commercial entity employing over 85 staff nationwide and performing more than 870,000 analyses on over 102,000 samples each year. Major clients include local authorities, water and wastewater companies, engineering consultants, and industrial customers throughout New Zealand.

Our main Auckland laboratory is located close to Auckland International Airport to speed up deliveries from around New Zealand and overseas.